Sarah Helen Whitman
| birth_place = Providence, Rhode Island | death_date = June | death_place = Providence, Rhode Island }} Sarah Helen Power Whitman (January 19, 1803 - June 27, 1878) was an American poet and essayist. A transcendentalist and spiritualist, she was a romantic interest of Edgar Allan Poe. Life Youth Whitman was born Sarah Helen Power in Providence, Rhode Island on January 19, 1803, exactly 6 years before Poe's birth.Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. New York: Cooper Square Press, 1992: 226. ISBN 0-8154-1038-7 She was the daughter of Nicholas Power. In 1828, she married poet and writer John Winslow Whitman. John had been co-editor of the Boston Spectator and Ladies' Album, which allowed Sarah to publish some of her poetry using the name "Helen". John died in 1833; he and Sarah never had children. Sarah Whitman had a heart condition that she treated with ether she breathed in through her handkerchief.Sova, Dawn B. Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z. New York: Checkmark Books, 2001: 254. ISBN 0-8160-4161-X Whitman was friends with Margaret Fuller and other intellectuals in New England. She became interested in transcendentalism through this social group and after hearing Ralph Waldo Emerson lecture in Boston, Massachusetts and in Providence. She also became interested in science, mesmerism, and the occult.Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991: 347–348. ISBN 0-06-092331-8 She had a penchant for wearing black and a coffin-shaped charm around her neck and may have practiced séances in her home on Sundays, attempting to communicate with the dead.Benton, Richard P. "Friends and Enemies: Women in the Life of Edgar Allan Poe" as collected in Myths and Reality: The Mysterious Mr. Poe. Baltimore: Edgar Allan Poe Society, 1987: 18. ISBN 0-9616449-1-5 Relationship with Poe Whitman and Poe crossed paths in Providence in July 1845. Poe was attending a lecture by a friend, poet Frances Sargent Osgood. As Poe and Osgood walked, they passed the home of Whitman while she was standing in the rose garden behind her house. Poe declined to be introduced to her.Benton, Richard P. "Friends and Enemies: Women in the life of Edgar Allan Poe" as collected in Myths and Reality: The mysterious Mr. Poe. Baltimore: Edgar Allan Poe Society, 1987: 17. ISBN 0-9616449-1-5 By this time, Whitman was already an admirer of Poe's stories. She admitted to friend Mary Hewitt: A friend, Annie Lynch, had asked Whitman to write some verse for a Valentine's Day party in 1848. She agreed, and wrote a poem for Poe, though he was not in attendance. Poe heard about the tribute, "To Edgar Allan Poe," and returned the favor by anonymously sending her his previously-printed poem "To Helen.". Whitman may not have known it was from Poe himself and she did not respond. 3 months later, Poe wrote her an entirely new poem, "To Helen," referencing the moment from several years earlier where Poe saw her in the rose garden behind her house.Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991: 347–351. ISBN 0-06-092331-8 Poe was on his way to see Whitman at the time of his alleged suicide attempt. Before boarding a train to Boston from Lowell, Massachusetts on his way to Providence, he took 2 doses of laudanum. By the time he arrived in Boston he was very sick and close to death.Benton, Richard P. "Friends and Enemies: Women in the Life of Edgar Allan Poe" as collected in Myths and Reality: The Mysterious Mr. Poe. Baltimore: Edgar Allan Poe Society, 1987: 19. ISBN 0-9616449-1-5 He spent 4 days in Providence with her immediately after. Though they shared a common interest in literature, Poe was concerned about Whitman's friends, many for whom he had little regard, including Elizabeth F. Ellet, Margaret Fuller, and several other Transcendentalists. He said to her, "My heart is heavy, Helen, for I see that your friends are not my own."Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991: 358–359. ISBN 0-06-092331-8 The couple exchanged letters and poetry for some time before discussing engagement. After Poe lectured in Providence in December 1848, reciting a poem by Edward Coote Pinkney directly to Whitman, she agreed to an "immediate marriage".Thomas, Dwight & David K. Jackson. The Poe Log: A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe, 1809–1849. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1987: 778–779. ISBN 0-8161-8734-7 Poe agreed to remain sober during their engagement — a vow he violated within only a few days. Whitman's mother discovered that Poe was also pursuing Annie Richmond and childhood sweetheart Sarah Elmira Royster. Even so, the wedding had come so close to occurring that, in January 1849, a newspaper in New London, Connecticut and others announced their union and wished them well.Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991: 385–388. ISBN 0-06-092331-8 Whitman and Poe even chose a wedding date: December 25, 1848,Ehrlich, Eugene and Gorton Carruth. The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982: 70. ISBN 0-19-503186-5 despite criticism of the relationship from friends and enemies alike. Whitman supposedly received an anonymous letter while she was at the library suggesting that Poe had broken his vow to her to stay sober, directly leading to an end of the relationship. Poe said in a letter to Whitman (addressed "Dear Madam") that he blamed her mother for their split. Rufus Wilmot Griswold, Poe's infamous biographer, claimed that Poe purposefully ended his relationship with Whitman the day before their wedding by committing unnamed drunken "outrages"Chivers, Thomas Holley. Chivers' Life of Poe, Richard Beale Davis, editor. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1952: 71–72 that, as he wrote in his biography, "made necessary a summons of the police".Stashower, Daniel. The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Invention of Murder. New York: Dutton, 2006: 283. ISBN 0-525-94981-X Later life Whitman's collection Hours of Life, and other poems was published in 1853. In 1860, 11 years after Poe's death, she published a work in defense of him against his critics, aimed especially at Rufus Griswold, entitled Edgar Allan Poe and His Critics. A Baltimore newspaper said the book was a noble effort "but it does not wipe out the ... dishonorable records in the biography of Dr. Griswold."Moss, Sidney P. Poe's Literary Battles: The Critic in the Context of His Literary Milieu. Southern Illinois University Press, 1969: 128–129 The work likely inspired William Douglas O'Connor to write The Good Gray Poet, a similar defense of Walt Whitman, published in 1866.Loving, Jerome. Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself. University of California Press, 1999: 327. ISBN 0-520-22687-9 She corresponded with Poe's English biographer, John Henry Ingram, who added her letters from Poe and a daguerrotype portrait to the library of material he was assembling; Ingram's Poe collection is now held at the Alderman Library at the University of Virginia. She died at the age of 75 in 1878 at the home of a friend at 97 Bowen St. in Providence, Rhode Island,Miller, John Carl. Poe's Helen Remembers. 1979. Charlottesville: Univ Press of Virginia, 1979: 502. and is buried in the North Burial Ground. In her will, she used the bulk of her estate to publish a volume of her own poetry and that of her sister. She also left money to the Providence Association for the Benefit of Colored Children and the Rhode Island Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991: 521. ISBN 0-06-092331-8 Publications Poetry *Poem Recited before the Rhode-Island Historical Society Jan. 13, 1847. Providence, RI: 1847. *''Hours of Life, and other poems. Providence, RI: George H. Whitney, 1853. *Poems. Boston: Houghton, Osgood, 1879. *''Last Flowers: The romance poems of Edgar Allan Poe and Sarah Helen Whitman (edited by Brett Rutherford). Providence, RI: Poet's Press, 1987). Non-fiction *''Edgar Poe and His Critics. New York: Rudd & Carleton, 1860. *"Introductory Letter" to ''The Life and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe by Eugene L. Didier. New York: W.J. Widdleton, 1879.Life and Poems, Internet Archive, Web, Dec. 30, 2012. Juvenile *''Cinderella'' (by Whitman & Susan Anna Power). Providence, RI: Printed by Hammond, Angell, 1867. *''The Sleeping Beauty'' (by Whitman & Power). Providence, RI: Printed by Hammond, Angell, 1868. Anthologized *"The Blind Man's Lay," "Retrospection," "She Blooms No More," and "The Spirit of Poetry," in The Ladies' Wreath (edited by Sarah Josepha Hale. Boston: Marsh, Capen & Lyon / New York: Appleton, 1837, pp. 356-363. *''The Rhode-Island Book: Selections in Prose and Verse, from the Writings of Rhode-Island Citizens'' (edited by Anne C. Lynch). Providence, RI: H. Fuller, 1841; Boston: Weeks, Jordan, 1841., pp. 50-58, 126-130, 141- 145, 278-279, 345. *''Female Poets of America'' (edited by Rufus W. Griswold). Philadelphia, PA: Carey & Hart, 1849, pp. 167-176. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.Sarah Helen Whitman 1803-1878, Poetry Foundation. Web, Dec. 30, 2012. See also * List of U.S. poets References Notes External links ;Poems *"To Edgar Allan Poe" *Sarah Helen Whitman 1803-1878 at the Poetry Foundation *Sonnets ;Books *Sarah Helen Whitman at Amazon.com ;About * Sarah Helen Power Whitman at About.com. ;Etc. * Whitman's letters to and from Poe at the Edgar Allan Poe Society online Category:American poets Category:Edgar Allan Poe Category:People from Providence, Rhode Island Category:Writers from Rhode Island Category:American women writers Category:19th-century women writers Category:1803 births Category:1878 deaths Category:19th-century poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets Category:Women poets